Using a keypad on a mobile device or a tablet to capture clinical information spoken in a conversation between a clinician and a patient can be challenging since the keypads on these devices, whether physical or touch-screen, are generally quite compact in size and difficult to use. The clinician may spend more time attending to the keypad than attending to the actual conversation. The limitations imposed by these compact keypads may be partially overcome by utilizing predictive typing tools. These tools suggest words only as a user begins to manually input text using the keypad. Although this type of tool may be helpful in some situations, the suggested words typically are common words and do not include medical terms leaving the clinician the unenviable task of manually inputting complicated medical terminology using the keypad.
Voice dictation with subsequent transcribing is an alternative to inputting extensive information on mobile devices or tablets using a keypad. However, voice dictation is not practical in a situation where a clinician is speaking with a patient. The rapport between the patient and the clinician is compromised if the clinician is constantly interrupting the patient to dictate into a voice recorder.
Automatic speech recognition is yet another alternative, but these solutions typically transcribe the entire conversation between parties and require that a user go back and verify the content of the conversation and manually make any changes to misunderstood words. Although this may be useful in some situations, it may not be necessary if a clinician is simply wishing to capture the important parts of a conversation at the time they are spoken in order to generate a shorthand clinical note that may be used as a memory aid for the later generation of a more comprehensive clinical note.